Having gone somewhere around a whole week without praising his Lord and Savior AJ Smith, Nick Canepa once again let's the compliments fly with this article. AJ doesn't do much in the free agent market, and apparently, unlike teams like Denver and New England, he doesn't have to. You see, those teams are trying to replace guys they don't like in order to catch up with us. We don't have any guys we don't like, so there is no point in us doing anything at all. I see the logic. I mean, you can't dislike your free safety when you don't have one, can you? Let me get all your hopes up with this real quick:
"Based on what newly acquired safety Adam Archuleta has been told by the Bears, he has been given Mike Brown's job. Which means that Brown, a Pro Bowler in 2005, will either be cut or moved back to free safety.-- Daily Herald"
Now, I doubt the Bears are really going to let Mike Brown hit the open market unimpeded, but if they did, wouldn't that be a sweet free agent pick-up. Sure, the guy gets injured, but he's so good when he's playing isn't it worth a shot? Unfortunately, I doubt he's in our price range, which tends to hover around 20-30% lower than what the market will bear. Which leads me to my favorite part of Canepa's piece:
“We're trying to build a championship team and the Dielman thing was tormenting me,” Smith says. “So we did go after a free agent – hard. That free agent is Kris Dielman. He was on the market, remember. He no longer was a Charger. We put a full-court press on Kris Dielman, and he was a free agent who chose to come back to the Chargers.”
Damn right he CHOSE to come back, cause your full court press had nothing to do with it from where I sit. You dodged that bullet, AJ, when Dielman decided to leave $10,000,000 on the table in Seattle, citing strong relationships he had developed within the organization here. I doubt you were one of those relationships.
The article goes on to talk about how teams are still calling about Michael Turner, even after AJ put a 1st and 3rd round tender on him. He won't name the teams, but I imagine it's just about everyone, and what they're really asking is when they can get a shot at LaDainian.
AJ Smith seems to be beyond reproach at this point due to some of the solid drafts and acquisitions he's made, but it seems as though there are at least a few people out there that are less than thrilled with the way he treats individuals, and that's the sort of thing that can slowly poison a club. Watch how Donnie Edwards plays against us twice this season. But Canepa fuels the fire and consistently updates Smith's PR docket with gung-ho crap like this:
"I don't know what to call A.J. Smith. He may have fans worried, but he has other teams concerned. Because he has the touch."
I'm so sad that I missed Nick's online chat the other day. I won't miss the next one.
1 comment:
As the defending 14-2 Western Division Champions, AFC Champions, and Super Bowl XLI Champions, I seem to agree with Lord Sith A.J. that we don't in fact need any free agents.
What? Of course we won, don't be ridiculous, I vividly remember Ladainian holding up the Lombardi trophy.
I don't know what this 'Peyton Manning' is that you speak of, is it some kind of STD?
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